Pompei and Vesuvius by car or scooter?
Oct 18th, 2013, 07:41 AM
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Pompei and Vesuvius by car or scooter?
We are going to Italy next May and are considering renting a car or scooters to get us to Vesuvius and Pompei. We will be based out of Sorrento. Any suggestions?
Oct 18th, 2013, 08:55 AM
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Scooters are fine if you are used to driving them in heavy traffic, don;t mind playing chicken with cars - and get only good weather. Useless in the rain and scary if you're not used to the roads.
Oct 18th, 2013, 11:22 PM
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You should be VERY sceptical about under-informed generalisations about "driving in the Naples traffic area".
The Bay of Naples conurbation is quite large, and linked overall by an adequate set of motorways. Traffic on the motorways is as disciplined and logical as in most sensible countries: a car drive from Sorrento to Pompeii or Vesuvius requires intense concentration and decent reflexes - but that's no different, in my experience, from driving round Atlanta, Los Angeles or Sydney.
That experience is quite different from driving into central Naples from the motorway ring, which requires an altogether different level of concentration, fast reflexes and the additional ability to spot traffic signs that have been carefully concealed. But driving a car from Sorrento to Pompeii and Vesuvius doesn't get you involved with any of that.
If you're starting off from close to Sorrento station, it's relatively straightforward to get the Circumvesuviana train to Pompeii Scavi station. But if you're some distance away, hiring a car may well be a much simpler way of getting to Pompeii (which has a number of different stations, not all of them offering straightforward connections by the same company to Sorrento).
Under practically no circumstances is using a scooter going to be anything other than an exercise in near-inevitable suicide. You can't use them on the motorways: off-motorway roads around Naples, while just challenging for car drivers, are simply deathtraps for novice scooter riders. Even if you're a highly skilled and widely experiences motorbike rider at home, nothing you'll have encountered will help you cope with ordinary Italian roads.
Being seduced by 1950s films based in Italy is as deluded as riding a horse on US freeways because that's what cowboys rode in the films you grew up with.
The Bay of Naples conurbation is quite large, and linked overall by an adequate set of motorways. Traffic on the motorways is as disciplined and logical as in most sensible countries: a car drive from Sorrento to Pompeii or Vesuvius requires intense concentration and decent reflexes - but that's no different, in my experience, from driving round Atlanta, Los Angeles or Sydney.
That experience is quite different from driving into central Naples from the motorway ring, which requires an altogether different level of concentration, fast reflexes and the additional ability to spot traffic signs that have been carefully concealed. But driving a car from Sorrento to Pompeii and Vesuvius doesn't get you involved with any of that.
If you're starting off from close to Sorrento station, it's relatively straightforward to get the Circumvesuviana train to Pompeii Scavi station. But if you're some distance away, hiring a car may well be a much simpler way of getting to Pompeii (which has a number of different stations, not all of them offering straightforward connections by the same company to Sorrento).
Under practically no circumstances is using a scooter going to be anything other than an exercise in near-inevitable suicide. You can't use them on the motorways: off-motorway roads around Naples, while just challenging for car drivers, are simply deathtraps for novice scooter riders. Even if you're a highly skilled and widely experiences motorbike rider at home, nothing you'll have encountered will help you cope with ordinary Italian roads.
Being seduced by 1950s films based in Italy is as deluded as riding a horse on US freeways because that's what cowboys rode in the films you grew up with.
